Solomon Hughes plays Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in Winning Time, HBO’s excellent, raucous series about the Showtime-era Lakers. For most actors, the physical aspect of the assignment—convincingly portraying a 7’ 2”, low-post legend—would be the hard part. Hughes has that covered, though. He’s 6’ 11”, was a captain of the Cal hoops team and played professionally, including a stint with the Harlem Globetrotters.
The rest of it, though—the actual acting—is uncharted territory. Hughes’s IMDb filmography shows one acting credit: Winning Time. Before getting the job he had gone on one audition for a commercial—“I think it was for Advil,” he says—and had never even acted in a high school play.